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Even though the focus of our site is on international bank to bank transfers, and business foreign exchange services, we felt there’s a growing need for a guide relating to buying travel money (“Holiday Money”).

This guide is mostly relevant for UK residents who want to avoid the high costs relating to bureaus and banks, and want want to buy Euros, Dollars, Australian Dollars or any other currency for reduced costs, ahead of time.

Barclay’s

RBS

Live Travel Exchange Rates

Estimated live rates based on our research August 1st 2015, using the fees and markups from previous page. £1,000 transfer to Euro. Today’s Exchange Rates Available here.

AceFX

Get: 1,119.19 EUR Saturday; 1,113.49 EUR Next-day

Moneycorp

Get: 1,112.35 EUR to 1,120.33 EUR

Thomas Cook

Get: Approx. 1,123.76 EUR or 1,106.64 EUR with CC.

Travelex

Get: 1,106.64 EUR

Changegroup

Get: 1,100.94 EUR

NatWest Bank

Get: 1,092.95 EUR

Thompston

Get: 1,100.94 EUR

Barclay’s

Get: 1,083.83 EUR

RBS

Get: 1,089.53 EUR

Notes: Based on an impartial research conducted by the Money Transfer Comparison staff in Nov 6, 2015, made on transfers of 500 and 1000 Pounds to Euro. The live exchange rates are for indicative purposes only.

Cheap Holiday Money – How To

In cash via exchange bureaus

This is probably one of the most common ways to buy currency before a holiday.

Advantages: Easy if live beside a bureau, Cash delivered on the spot

Disadvantages: Often consists of hidden fees, impossible to compare to alternatives, hassle to get there if it is not walking distance from your house, unsafe to walk with cash, a chance of fraud / forgery, often bad exchange rates.

With banks (cash on the spot, or home collection)

This is the traditional “safe” way of getting money exchanged.

Advantages: Safe, Secure, and Insured

Disadvantages: Extremely expensive. Look at our comparison above. In some cases you’d be paying twice as much using a bank rather than using a commercial companies. If you have a transparent quote that beats the 2-2.5% mark, then it might be a good idea to give banks a try.

Currency Cards

As debit spending passes the 600bn barrier in the UK for the first time, it’s only natural people would love foreign currency cards. These are specialised cards that allow you to exchange at set rates, and have several different currencies loaded on the same card.

Advantages: No hassle required. Simply take your card with you as you travel abroad.

Disadvantages: Debit currency cards are usually a very good choice, and the same rates mentioned above will apply also to currency exchanges on the card. On the other hand if it’s a foreign currency credit card, saving is unlikely – and charges abroad could incur additional 3% in interest.

Traveler’s cheques

Traveler’s cheques are not as half as popular as they were before as a mean of travel money purchase, with good reason.

Advantages: Insured against losses, No need to carry large amount of cash around

Disadvantages: Often expensive, archaic (hard to find cash exchange points), and online order is possible only from £400

Travel Currency Firms

This is probably the way to get the cheapest travel money in Australian Dollars, Euro, US Dollars, Czech Koruna, Canadian Dollar or Swiss Frank.

Advantages: Easy to execute with online purchase with debit card, multiple pickup options including cash at airport, home delivery, or loading into a prepaid card. On top of that, they offer the best exchange rates, superior client service.

Disadvantages: It depends which company is it. Some companies, and mainly the popular ones like Western Union and Moneygram are not particularly popular with their clients – and poorly rated on our website as well.

Bank to bank

This method is usually not applicable when you go on a holiday someplace abroad, but when it is, it a potential huge saver against all other alternatives, by a far cry.

Disadvantages: Longer process involving a domestic bank transfer, which is then sent abroad. More documentation to register. Besides that it’s a question of usage.

If you are going on a long journey and will have a bank account in your holiday destination, then this is an obvious solution.

If you are paying a travel company abroad with their local currency, it’s again a very easy way of transferring funds to their bank account (not necessarily upfront, you can secure current rate for the future). View our money transfer comparison and send money abroad page to find companies that can do that transaction.

In other cases, it’s not extremely useful. You should avoid sending money to people you don’t know with the hope they would be a corridor for your money to arrive; these kind of things can typically lead to disheartening scenarios.

3 comments

Charlotte martin

I used moneycorp to order travel money. Upon completion of the order a message came up saying they couldn’t complete my order however they had still taken the funds from my account and to call a given number to arrange a refund which could take 2 working days. As I am going on holiday in 2 days this isn’t really acceptable. I. Allied to try and arrange something but they said nothing could be done even though the money had been taken. They asked if I would like to try again to which I had to respond I can’t, you have all my money!! I said I didn’t want a refund anyway, I wanted the dollars I had ordered. They said it wasn’t possible… Again even though they had my money. So basically – not impressed. Never using this “service” again!

Thank you Charlotte for this feedback! I have moved your comment to our Travel Money page. Our Moneycorp review is for their money transfer service, which is very good. The travel money on the other hand… we’ll definitely look into this! Happy to hear more from you in the future.

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